[Buynewascent]

This seems like a very informative and helpful forum.For instance, I was able to learn a lot about pricing, and also the vip program. In fact, I read the whole post about the vip program, but then I found the alternative program with the Philadelphia horticultural society and joined their organization. Saved a lot by doing it that way.

Some of the Problems with the forum are conflicts of interest, inaccurate information, and what I’ll refer to as conjecture.

From reading it appears that there may be Subaru company people here or dealers. I’ve dealt with that at the odyssey forum for about instance, the name John Clark stands out and he counters the honest opinions of owners but he is apparently conflicted or maybe writing thousands of posts and playing supreme poster is his thing.

There are times when inaccuracies and conjecture seem to get the better part of the post, but all around the forum is a very valuable source of information. For instance, I was reading the price paid post and the presentation of the information obscures the deal that people actually made. Tangents get a little bit too much like someone disputing their actual deal, and possibly sales pitches. It was good when someone posted about standardizing the info presentation.
My wife wants to buy either a forester touring or something close or an ascent touring or one down. I’m using this forum to learn a lot so thanks to all the members.

 

[Jason]

I am here as an Ascent owner, but just happen to work at a pretty darn good Subaru store. I help where I can but there are many people here that know more about the Ascent than I do

 

[TSiWRX]

Regardless of the type of online community, there's always a noise-to-signal ratio.


A more harshly moderated community tend to have a better ratio, but it really risks alienating newer members (particularly first-time participants) and confers a huge amount of power (and responsibility) to the admin/Moderation staff. As long as admin/Mods are themselves non-conflicted (industry ties does *not* necessarily mean that they will present with misinformation or dishonesty, although such conflicts of interest should always be declared), problems are typically minimal.



Less moderated communities tend to have quite a bit more noise, but you'll tend to see a lot of participation. Conjecture and speculation tend to be self-moderated by community members, as there tend to always be hidden SMEs - (S)ubject (M)atter (E)xperts - in the crowd. But that said, self-policing can only go so far, and sometimes, bad information has a way of spreading like wildfire before it's eventually checked.



It's always a trade-off. I've grown up with the Internet - first as a tool in the late 80s and early 90s for scientific research/information exchange, and seemingly very shortly thereafter as entertainment - and it's pretty much always been this way.

If you haven't already, @Buynewascent, give the Cars101 pages a look-see for both the Forester and the Ascent, and also the Edmunds Forums for these two models. They are also incredibly helpful. For the Forester, the SubaruForester.org discussion Forum is also a good resource.

 

[Subiesailor]

The Legacy / Outback will be the closest thing to quality of ride and Interior to the Ascent the Forrester and Impreza are on the same sized version of the Global platform its not on the same level as the Legacy/Outback.

 

[sloheim]

Pretty sure any of those comments can be said about any message board, anywhere.

 

[Robert.Mauro]

Welcome!!!

Welcome to the forums!

The thing about any forum, as some others above have said, there's always the noise and the valuable comments, and, it's hard to moderate them to clean up noise without making the forum experience terrible. There's a fine balance. That aside, there's some great posters here, including some who work at dealerships like Jason and Carl.

There's some Subaru Ambassadors here (we don't work for Subaru though we share our love for the brand in a somewhat official capacity as brand ambassadors) such as Pilot1226 and myself (who also help moderate these forums) - we're literally not allowed to lie to you about Subies or competitors (not that it's in our nature regardless, because it's not), but that doesn't mean we (or even those who work for dealerships) aren't wrong from time to time. It happens.

And then some of us have "known" (in the digital sense) each other for years, so, our "tones" with each other are sometimes misunderstood by those who don't realize that we've been interacting for a half decade or more over in the Outback or NASIOC or in the Foz forums and have a familiarity with each other that sometimes means picking on each other or teasing each other or even being so very direct that to others it seems we're being brutal.

So, hoping you enjoy the forums, and find the information you're looking for. We're all a font of information, and some of it is even correct!!! :tango_face_wink: :grin:

 

[zulater]

I love lamp!